STATE HOUSE ROUNDUP: Eyes look to Washington

Bump stocks, Bump's rising stock and the gamble of a little-known state representative from Lawrence looking to bump up the political ladder.

When everything else seems to be in limbo, sometimes there's no easier reprieve for lawmakers from the malaise on Beacon Hill than to open up the newspaper and find something to react to.

The slow burn of criminal justice and health care reform bills may have something to do with the decision Rep. Juana Matias, a first-term legislator from Lawrence, made this week to set her sights on something bigger -- Congress.

Go where the action is.

Matias has barely had time to settle into the rhythms of the Legislature, but even in her short political career she has been an embodiment of the newish political culture in Massachusetts that spits on the wait-your-turn philosophy of previous generations.

Like U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, who knocked off an incumbent in his own party on his way to being a talked-about 2020 White House contender, Matias took on and beat Democrat Marcos Devers in 2016 and now plans to run for U.S. Rep. Niki Tsongas' seat next year.

Tsongas, of course, plans to retire, so there is no one there to dethrone. Just a wide-open field with no clear heir to the seat. Matias came to the United States with her family from the Dominican Republic when she was 5, and now sells herself as "Donald Trump's worst nightmare." But she has competition for that title.

Andover's Dan Koh, one of at least six Democrats now running in the 3rd District, turned heads last week when he announced a staggering $805,000 fundraising haul in the month since since he announced his campaign. But if the desired effect was to scare off further challengers, it didn't work.

Sen. Barbara L'Italien is another looking to punch her ticket out of Boston to Washington, showing how even the prospects of entering the minority in Congress can have a brighter shine than being in the supermajority at the state level.

The goal is the same, but the dynamic different for Rep. Geoff Diehl, who is trying to escape the Republican minority in the Massachusetts House to join the GOP majority in the U.S. Senate.

With just one month left until the Legislature recesses for the year, the Democrats' agenda has been slow to take form, and business groups moved to undercut one leg of their stool by filing a lawsuit challenging the attorney general's certification of a ballot question to impose a surtax on millionaires.

The Raise Up Coalition believes their constitutional amendment remains on solid footing, but the business groups' case is probably more than just a wish and prayer, and if successful would seriously dampen the excitement of lawmakers looking ahead to 2019 and all the money they think they'll have to spend.

The one thing the branches have been able to agree on is that the budget they produced in July was fine as it was before Gov. Charlie Baker got his jittery hands on it.

House leaders flexed their muscles in a way not seen for at least several years, completing their work to reverse all $320 million worth of spending vetoes made by Baker in July as the Republican governor warned about the risk of a third-straight cycle of midyear budget cuts.

House Democrats, however, didn't want to be told about the need to exercise caution, and their confidence in their own budgeting ability, whether it will prove to be misguided or right on the money this year, got a shot in the arm by a September revenue report showing that for the time being the state has a $124 million cushion.

The Senate has been taking up budget overrides at a slower pace -- just $40 million through Oct. 6 -- but there's little indication to suggest they will be more conservative about spending than their counterparts in the House.

Reaching agreements on criminal justice reform could be a trickier proposition, and House Speaker Robert DeLeo announced last week that he had brought in former Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Roderick Ireland to advise the House as it develops its response to the Senate bill.

At the informally branded "Super Bowl of Health Care," DeLeo also told attendees at the annual Health Policy Commission health care cost trends hearing that the House would likely let the Senate go first. The speaker said it "might be wise for us probably to see" what the Senate does on health care "and take it up from there."

So what is the House ready to move on?

Well, the horrific massacre of 58 people attending a country music concert in Las Vegas provided an opening for something everyone could agree on.

After shooter Stephen Paddock used a device known as a bump stock to enable his semiautomatic weapon to shower the crowded with hundreds of rounds a minute, the rifle modification devices that few in Massachusetts seemed to be familiar with before now wound up in the crosshairs.

Rep. David Linsky filed legislation to ban bump stocks, and Baker agreed they should be outlawed. With the green light from the governor, DeLeo and Senate President Stanley Rosenberg both said they wanted to move on the issue quickly, and House and Senate Republicans assured there would be no objection from their corner. How quickly they'll act is an open question, and keep in mind that quickly means different things to different people.

Rep. Harold Naughton and Sen. Michael Moore might have also stumbled upon a slam-dunk issue after Auditor Suzanne Bump struck headline gold with an audit last week faulting the Sex Offender Registry Board with losing track of hundreds of sex offenders.

Naughton and Moore decided last week to use their Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security to further investigate the findings of Bump's audit and develop legislation to close any loopholes in the monitoring system that might be allowing sex offenders to slip through the cracks.